Like I did yesterday morning, I kept the back door open and let Milly play in the yard so long as she stayed within my field of view. There was one point that I looked away for a minute and she was standing on top of one of the picnic table benches, asking for her creatively-named fish doll, Nemo. A toddler standing on a bench would normally be bad in and of itself, especially since the table wasn’t right next to it, but Harvey chewed on the bottom of one of them a long time back, making it particularly wobbly.
Fortunately nothing happened. I got Milly down and, getting to the point, turned the benches so that she couldn’t get on them. One landed on its side and the other landed upside down. Milly “‘mon Daddy”-ed me into walking around the yard with her and Nemo (I got him after I knocked the benches down). The yard hasn’t been mowed in a while and there’s a part of it with dandelions growing as tall as Milly’s armpit. She picked some flowers, had Nemo sniff them and got real close to his face as if they were sharing a profound secret, then she started laughing at the doll.
A few minutes later we were back at the benches. Milly was standing on the overturned one and instructed me to get in the boat. Maybe, even without the presence of water, she actually thought the upside-down bench was a boat, but I think the more likely explanation is that Milly has really begun to use her imagination. That’s a very exciting thing to witness!
Most of the rest of my day was spent working. I made quite a lot of headway into a personal website I’ve been wanting to build for a long time now. I think I should be done with it within a week.
After Amanda got home she took Milly out to do a bit of shopping. Milly continued what she’s been doing for about a week now and had a number of fussy bouts. Amanda and I are discussing ways to address that. Then again, it could be that she’s just getting her two year molars in. Regardless, Amanda and I have started discussing some things we could tighten up on in regards to structuring Milly’s day and such.
For dinner we were able to bribe Milly into eating a pea (well, biting it; she didn’t actually eat it) when I demonstrated that after eating a pea I was allowed to eat a chocolate chip. It’s so funny that she doesn’t like peas anymore, since she used to eat them up.
After dinner we went for a walk, Amanda, Milly, Bruce and I. We’ve decided we’ll alternate which dog gets to go for a walk. Bruce didn’t drag Milly down this time because Amanda or I held the leash with Milly, but he did keep straining at his leash and choking himself. I know it’s been a while since we’ve consistently walked him, but it’s not like he’s a stranger to being on a leash.
Milly went down and Amanda watched Idol while I continued to work on my site. Milly woke up around 10:30, which was odd, but after getting hugs from me and Amanda and sticking a paci back in her mouth, she went right back down.
Zach Dotsey